It’s so easy for motivators to tell you to just brush off your demotivation with a workout or a motivational video. But it’s so much harder to actually do those things when you’re down. I never actually understood this concept until I felt it myself. I used to think that nothing is beyond our control, even low days can be altered by our mindset. And I’ve never been more wrong.
First let me draw a picture of what demotivation might look like:
- To be demotivated could mean to not want to do anything all at once and give up on your important tasks.
- It could also mean just losing interest in everything you enjoy but getting the important stuff done eventually.
In the first scenario, demotivation would feel more like depression. As if the world keeps rotating around you although you’re stuck in one place. You know that it’s important that you get up and do something, but you can’t seem to care enough to do it.
On the other hand, the second scenario would feel more like a loss of appetite towards things you enjoy doing. So, you’d end up dragging yourself to doing them with the bare minimum energy and a lack of purpose as to why you’re getting it done in the first place.
Both scenarios are very common and lethal because once you realize that you’re falling into the traps of these routines you end up feeling worse. The way we experience our lows depend on which chapter of our lives we’re at in the moment and learning to accept them as ways to help us grow and move on, no matter how negative the emotions we feel are.
Truth is, the way and the time in which we get into and out of a rut is different for everyone. It could last a few hours, days or months. It could be in the beginning of our conscious lives, in the middle of it or towards the end. From personal experience, and I’ll be very transparent here, it took me about 6 months and to be honest, I’m still stumbling. At first, I suppressed this emotion and continued to spread positivity to those around me but then I got drained even more. I then started to lose interest in meeting people all at once to avoid spreading the negativity because people have enough of that already. After that, I dived more and more into demotivation and did not want to do anything at all. The more I dove into it, the more inescapable it felt and the more I was hard on myself because it wasn’t in my nature to give in to negative emotions, and I’m sure many of you can relate.
The one thing I learned was to let yourself be demotivated. Allow yourself to sit in the stillness. Allow yourself to dive deep into the roots of the person you are within even if that person doesn’t feel like yourself anymore. It’s still a part of who you are, and it doesn’t help if you “brush it off” or suppress it down. It would help you even more to understand how you act in times like this, in case it happens to you again and in case there are hidden thoughts within you that you need to confront or address.
Do to yourself as you would do to a friend. Listen to what you’re telling yourself inside your head, pay careful attention to the loud and the soft noises inside of you. There’s no manual to getting out of a rut, just do the small things that help you get by, I guess. It could be to go somewhere inspiring or to stay in your bed, it could be to see people or stay by yourself. There’s no “proper” way to get out of it unless you listen to what you’re telling yourself. If you’re finding it difficult to hear yourself out, write it down, record your own voice or talk to yourself out loud (no one is judging). If you can’t let it out to yourself the first time, try again in a different time. Let it take days for you to discover your own depths. I’d recommend talking to friends but there are certain times where you need to do the work yourself to get a better understanding and grow from the experience.
My only advice is to just remember to take care of yourself along the way. Reflecting and identifying your mistakes and your weaknesses but remembering the positives as well. Use your positives to get rid of the negatives, never the other way around. Just be patient with yourself and don’t be too harsh or too hasty with taking action. You’ll get out of it eventually, just take it one day at a time.
Elaf Trabulsi 